Lehtonen, early onslaught power Thrashers

UNIONDALE, New York (Ticker) -- A fresh face in goal worked
wonders for the Atlanta Thrashers and was a disaster for the New
York Islanders.

Kari Lehtonen returned to the lineup and stopped 33 shots for
his eighth career shutout and the Thrashers scored three early
goals against Wade Dubielewicz en route to a 4-0 victory over
the Islanders on Saturday.

Lehtonen, who had been on a conditioning assignment with Chicago
of the American Hockey League, was recalled earlier in the day
after missing 16 games with a groin injury. The native of
Finland began the season as the Thrashers' No. 1 goaltender, but
was 0-4-0 with a 4.49 goals-against average before being hurt.

"I'm playing with much more confidence," Lehtonen said. "When
you start the season, everybody's trying to get used to each
other. We're much better now as a team. It's nice to be back,
and nice to see everybody play well."

The 24-year-old Lehtonen recorded his first shutout since
November 30, 2006 against Toronto, turning aside nine shots in
the first period, five in the second and a whopping 19 in the
third.

"I don't think you can ask for anything better than what
happened to Kari tonight," Thrashers coach Don Waddell said.
"He was on top of his game."

Lehtonen preserved the shutout with a nice blocker save on a
shot by Sean Bergenheim early the third. Islanders defenseman
Marc-Andre Bergeron came close to scoring midway through the
session but hit the goalpost with a slap shot.

Ilya Kovalchuk scored his league-leading 21st goal just 34
seconds into the contest for the Thrashers, who snapped a
three-game losing streak.

Eric Boulton, Marian Hossa and Vyacheslav Kozlov also tallied in
the first period to give Lehtonen a 4-0 cushion.

That was more than enough against the Islanders, who failed to
score more than two goals for the 12th straight time.

"I'm not a real strong believer in pregame skates, but this
morning, I thought we would be ready to play," Islanders coach
Ted Nolan said. "I was wrong. We just weren't prepared, right
from the beginning."

With the Islanders playing for the fourth time in six nights,
coach Ted Nolan started Dubielewicz in goal in place of Rick
DiPietro, who had tied a career high by making 18 consecutive
starts. But Dubielewicz was the victim of some shoddy defense
in front of him while allowing three goals on Atlanta's first
five shots.

"It just feels like we got behind the eight ball and, me
personally, I got rattled out there a little bit," Dubielewicz
said. "It's tough to calm yourself down. (If) you only get to
play once in a while, you want to impress the guys and the
coaching staff so they can feel comfortable with you."

Kovalchuk scored on the first shift, skating around defenseman
Radek Martinek at the blue line and putting a wrist shot from
the left faceoff circle past Dubielewicz.

"We knew they played a goalie that doesn't play a lot, so we
wanted to jump on them early," Kovalchuk said.

The first overall pick in the 2001 draft, Kovalchuk has 17 goals
in his last 17 games.

Boulton was not picked up by defenseman Andy Sutton and poked
home the rebound of Jim Slater's shot at 6:12 for his first goal
of the season.

Hossa scored from the slot 50 seconds later after receiving a
perfect pass from Kovalchuk.

Kozlov tallied on a wrist shot from the left circle with 13
seconds left in the period, prompting Dubielewicz to break his
stick over the crossbar in frustration.

"It's tough for a goalie to play 5-on-0," said Islanders captain
Bill Guerin, who was held without a point for the 13th straight
game.